Composer and Producer Richard Lewine Dies Young People's Concerts and More

Richard Lewine, an Emmy award-winning television producer and Broadway composer, died May 19 in New York City. He was 94.

Lewine won his Emmy for producing Barbra Streisand’s first television special, the 1965 broadcast My Name Is Barbra.

Born in 1911 in New York City, Lewine was a vice president of CBS Television from 1952-1961. In 1957, he produced Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, starring Julie Andrews, for CBS. A year later he produced Aladdin, with music by Cole Porter, and three CBS specials starring Noel Coward: Together with Music, Blithe Spirit and This Happy Breed.

Lewine was also executive producer of CBS’s acclaimed The Young People's Concerts featuring Leonard Bernstein.

When he left CBS, Lewine became an independent producer. Among his better known projects was the 1963 ABC music series, Hootenanny.

Lewine’s other TV producing credits include The Dangerous Christmas of Red Riding Hood, with Liza Minnelli and original music by Jule Styne, On the Flipside, with Rick Nelson and original music by Burt Bacharach and Rodgers & Hart Today, featuring Bobby Darin and the Supremes.

In addition to his television work, Lewine, who was also a playwright, songwriter and musician, had a hand in several Broadway shows. He wrote music for the 1937 show The Fireman’s Flame, 1939’s Naughty Naught ’00, 1948’s Make Mine Manhattan and 1959’s The Girls Against the Boys. He also conceived the 1975 production Rodgers & Hart and produced Look to the Lillies the same year.

Lewine drew upon his expertise in this realm as co-author of three reference books on the American musical theater and during the 1980s, after the passing of Richard Rodgers, he was hired as interim managing director of the Rodgers and Hammerstein office.

He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, a daughter, a son and four grandchildren.